All these terms refers to a process of identifying the developmental needs or training needs for an employee, an organisation, or a work group / team. The developmental needs may also be considered as a “gap” and thereby a focus area to plan improvement actions.

Training need assessment is a process to identify the areas where both individual and the group would benefit from the training in order to become more effective. It identifies the gap areas and measures to be taken overcome the gap areas in order to achieve the objective of the individual and the organisation as a whole.

For example: If – “effective communication” is essential for employees in the customer interfacing team of an organisation – and if some employees are not up to mark on the same – this could be a ”gap area” or a “training need” for them. Once it is clear that “effective communication” is a “training need” for some employees, the organisation may plan requisite training programs for the concerned employees.

A training need assessment process supports the identification of training objectives, and development plans based on clearly identified gap areas. The process helps identify appropriate actions or the type of training to be imparted to cover those gap areas.